One City Experiences the English Civil War. Dorney, John (b. 1604 or 5). (1653)

Certain speeches made upon the day of the yearly election of officers in the city of Gloucester. Being in the charter-language of said city, die luna prox' post Festum S. Michaelis Archangeli.

London: printed by A.M. for Tho. Underhill, 1653

FIRST EDITION. Bound in contemporary sheep, with some edge and spine wear, but sound. Small losses to the leather at the corners. With a late 18th c. bookplate with the motto "Esse quam videri" on the pastedown. Internally, this coy is in beautiful fresh condition. The first two leaves, printed on one side only, consist of the woodcut arms of the city of Gloucester and dedicatory verses. The final two leaves consist of a "Catalogue of the Names of the several Officers in the several Years afore-mentioned".

John Dorney was town-clerk of Gloucester during the Civil War. He was a staunch parliamentarian. He wrote an account of the siege of Gloucester, published in 1643, and was instrumental in preventing the demolition of the cathedral when it had fallen into disrepair after the siege. In the first speech in this volume, Dorney declares Worcester to be "a free city… free from Popery and… free from tyranny… a famous city, famous…for constancy in the cause of God and of the commonwealth".

This volume comprises speeches made by Dorney during the years of the Civil War and the early years of the Commonwealth, 1643-1652. In his speeches, Dorney describes in detail the particular civic and governmental character of Gloucester, discoursing at length on the particular workings of each civic office and the structure of the government, as well as 紡nd this is most interesting- numerous references to the developing political and military situation over the course of the years, including the Siege of Gloucester in 1643, the sack of neighboring Worcester by the Scots in 1650, and the final battle of the Civil War: New Model Army's victory over the Royalist army at Worcester in September 1651. Cromwell's victory preserved Gloucester from the devastation that had overtaken neighboring Worcester. In his speech of late 1651, Dorney's describes both the sudden appearance of the Northern Army ("like a black cloud in a fair, calm season") and its subsequent defeat as things that "require our wonder as well as our inquiry". He thanks God for Gloucester's deliverance and, in a marvelous passage, exhorts his fellow citizens to show sympathy and compassion towards the citizens of Worcester, who:

"out of a belief of the enemies strength, and fear to make resistance, through distrust of their own, and perhaps out of a desire in some to promote the enemy's design (it were very uncharitable to think so of all), entertained if not welcomed those foreign guests, for which at last they paid so dear, and that in a severe impartiality, without distinction of persons differing in affection, or putting a difference between an error and a crime. Whose sad condition how can we but commiserate? If we consider what force and violence, what terrors and affrightments: what loss and damage they sustained and we escaped? And who can take offence if I should declare the citizens of Worcester to be fit objects of your pity, yea, many of them your liberality? Which the heathens themselves (guided only by the candlelight of nature) did exercise to very enemies subdued, and did account it no small part of their piety to do so. I might tell you how conquering Caesar used so much civility in that kind, that it was said of him 'Odio civiliter usus', he used his hatred civilly: but I need not go so far for an example, you have it in the present victorious general, whose nobleness of spirit hath been discovered, not only in gaining of conquests, but also in his deliverance toward the conquered, so that he hath hereby gained a good report out of the mouths of his enemies themselves. Let none of us therefore be so flinty breasted as to insult over the miserable in that poor city, and to shut up from them our bowels of compassion." (pp. 70-1)